I'm not sure if I should respond here, or your lj... *g* (r) -- La Femme Nikita Fan Fiction Message Board

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Date Posted: Saturday, November 19, 09:30:41am
Author: Nell
Subject: I'm not sure if I should respond here, or your lj... *g* (r)
In reply to: JayBee 's message, "It's tricky to reply to this (r)" on Friday, November 18, 03:37:57pm

I know, the multiple uses of 'like' here are a problem.

I mean, it's no secret to the FFMB readers, for example, that I don't like Paul very much - and as a result, have had a lot of trouble trying to write him in the last few years. But I don't draw any conclusions from that (beyond pondering tragedy as a genre....) about my feelings about *male characters* as an entire subgroup.

Also, I do very much like that Paul *is in the LFN world* - because Paul isn't evil or a caricature. He is a complicated person whose life has a hugely important role to play in Nikita's development and growth as a person - the show would be misssing an incredibly important piece of its' overall dynamic if he weren't there, or even if he were different and, say, more to my personal tastes. I could understand, though, if someone just casually reading my remarks about him might miss that. And, I might very well be missing that element in some of the kind of probing and catagorizing of all female characters that I'm objecting too here.

But, I have seen people make what strike me as fairly reductive judgements about female characters, as an entire group, based on their liking/disliking any one particular character. For example, I've seen comments that read, more or less, like "I can't stand Buffy, I hate that she's pushed as a role model (leaving aside whether or not that is even so)," so therefore "I don't like any female charcters that remind me of Buffy (or have her qualities)" but when pressed, it turns out they don't like women who have no plot role, or who are steropically girly, or..... and dude! what the hell is left?

I've also seen it run, "but Willow is too weak, Cordelia too concernd with her looks, Joan is too mother-like (WTF?)" .... and down they run through *all* of the Buffy!verse women explaning why they are not to their taste - and I can't help but read that kind of thing as, "these characters all have tits which, by definition, means that they are problematic to me a priori of any other characteristics that they might have."

So - *like* (or find interesting) has started to really bug me, not as a fan's reaction - never that - to the source material, but as a useful category for talking about "female characters" as a ghettoized group.

The challenge, here, for conversation, is that I also tend to find the people who come back with "I pay no attention to gender when I judge characters/stories/readers/writers" disingenuous. At best.

We swim in a gender coded sea. There is no way *not* to see gender and react to that. The challenge, I think, is to be conscious about how we react. And change our reactions if they need to be changed.

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